The failure to enact the 25-year-old recommendations of the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody is “unforgivable” and overshadows modern efforts to reform the justice system, the acting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice commissioner has said.Speaking about the release of the Human Rights Commission’s Social Justice and Native Title Report 2016 this week, the deputy commissioner, Robynne Quiggin, said the lack of action was disrespectful to the work the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people put into the commission, which ran from 1987 to 1991.“It’s really unforgivable, I think, that we have seen the failure to commit to implementing the recommendations of the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody,” she told Guardian Australia.Aboriginal deaths in custody: 25 years on, the vicious cycle remains Read more“We were starting to see change after the royal commission and that has just fallen away and fallen away until we have the shameful statistics now.”The Indigenous imprisonment rate has doubled in the years since the royal commision handed down its final report, from 14.4% in 1991 to 28% in 2016.Quiggin said it would be “more than disheartening” if the recommendations from the royal commission into youth detention in the Northern Territory – established after a Four Corners program showed graphic images of abuse at Don Dale youth detention centre – were similarly ignored.Mick Gooda left his role as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice commissioner in August to act as one of the royal commissioners in the NT, after heavily criticising the Territory government.Quiggin said the federal government urgently needed to set justice targets and support evidence-based diversionary programs, like Justice Reinvestment, to prevent further incidents like the ones at Don Dale.